So I became a Startup Riot ambassador. Mainly because I believe that it is one of the most important events on the South technology scene. Startup Riot is growing and branching out. They have started MAKE which is essentially a startup weekend like experience and it is good to see someone picking up the ball there. But the big gathering is Startup Riot SHOW.
SHOW is an all-day pitch event that highlights 25 startups giving three minute pitches. If you want to see the latest early stage stuff this is the place to be. The prices are low, ranging from $30 to $70 for the day and it is free to present.
This year SHOW takes place on February 22. Registration closes on February 8. The registration to pitch has passed but if you have it going on you still might be able to make the stage. Drop me a line.
We have been looking for a community manager to join Half Off Depot for sometime. The basic plan was to have introductory meetings and then move forward with second interviews where the candidates would provide an overview of what they would do if given the job. Best plan gets to execute kind of thing.
I had a good first meeting with a woman who I will call Brigette, mainly because that is her real name. We setup the follow up meeting on the spot. I was a little worried about the timing of it and mentioned this to her. More than once. She said she was in. And then she cancelled. She had a reason. It did not matter. I blew her up. She was no longer a candidate. A commitment with care thing. This was back in June.
Mid July Brigette sent me this note.
Hi Lance,
I attended a social media meeting recently, which underlined two key qualities of a good community manager: being brave and being persistent. I figured it was the universe's way of telling me to send you the deck I created for the Half Off Depot Community Manager position.
If you haven't hired anyone yet, I'm still interested and enthusiastic ... and to prove it, here's the first Half of my deck. The rest, I'd like to show you in person.
Here's the deck. To add a little context to the title slide Mr. Livewell is our mascot.
I wanted the full story. She earned herself another shot. Brigette starts at Half Off this week. I think she is going to be a great.
Depending on who you ask Rachel Sequoia gives either the greatest or worst pre-launch startup pitch ever. Either way you have to listen to her. It's an engaging pitch for a ridiculous concept
This morning I was invited to Morris, Manning & Martin's Atlanta Technology Breakfast. This little event was slipstreaming off of SEVC. The agenda was 20 companies giving three minute pitches to a room full of local and out of town VCs, one who happened to be sitting next to me.
While the presenting companies were generally quite good these exchanges took place for two different companies.
VC: "Is this real?" Me: "I don't know."
VC: "What do they do?" Me: "I can't tell you." VC: "Companies should say what they do up front?" Me: "Yes they should."
After a great presentation by David Hauser we are launching into the third and final flight of startup presentations.
Layer A Matt Smith pivot off of Rank 'Em. Layer helps teams make better decisions faster. National Science Foundation had this problem that somehow Matt came to solve. Rankings.
mediafeedia Facebook tool for business. Manage more then 25 fan page, scheduling, and more. Have more than 4,000 Facebook fan pages under management. Have raised over $1 million.
Gabacus Twitter pattern recognition. It takes these patternsand summarizes tweets down to a manageable number. This is a pivot off of some software that has been developing for years.
Zoompf Zoompf scans websites for performance issues and creates a prioritized action plan for optimizing a site. Zoompf customers average load times decrease by three seconds. Focus on ecommerce and large content sites. Sas model.
Ucloser Real estate app that helps with business management. Raising $500k with $200 already committed.
eRollover The WebMD of retirement planning. CEO Tim Harrington is a quite successful serial entrepreneur. Love him. They raised $500k at a nice valuation last year. Will be looking for round two later in the year.
GoPresent Another CEO Ventures project. Michael Price has been busy. GoToMeeting knock off that is a bit more simple to use.
Wynsum Arts A social-entrepreneurship founded in 2007. Their aim is to help parents of children with Executive Function challenges.
Stormpulse Golly Matt Wensing talks fast. Stormpulse has a very nice weather map. FedEx, Chevron, and Southern Company are customers. Matt and his team have been at this since 2004. Based in West Palm Beach. Somebody should fund them.
Minglle These guys got a kickstart at StartAtlanta. Minglle's aim is to make networking at events more productive. A shame they could not get a test out for the Riot.
Telineage Nice telecommunications security company being formed by some Georgia Tech graduate students. Telineage is a secure caller-ID alternative that prevents number spoofing.
Diner Connection Mobile phone based app that utilizes text messaging to notify customers of ready tables and daily specials. They launched in September 2010. Self-funded thus far and have won a slew of awards. Looking to raise their first angel round. Like it.
SyncPad Whiteboard app for all things that start with a little i. Focusing on the enterprise market at the moment. Looking for an unstated amount of capital.
Now we are voting for the top three presenting companies via a phone app.
Nexpense and Telineage tie for 2nd in crowd vote. TripLingo, born a few weeks ago at StartAtlanta wins best of show.
The only thing that stands between us and drinks is Kindle giveaways.
Well after a yummy lunch at the Yumbii truck and a lot of good networking and Sanjay story telling we are back for the 2nd hour of pitches.
Dealy Deal of the day software. Dealy lets you create and schedule deals across all the websites and social networks that a retailer wants from a single web app. Use group buying sites as distribution points. Out of Greensville and in private beta with 850 users.
Digify Media Real-time mobile only news application for vertical markets. Think WSJ iPhone app for more niche media. It's an interesting app called TrendOY! that is currently available in the app store.
CubeVibe Employee engagement software. In beta. Launching soon, looking for more beta customers with less than 1,000 employees. Well done.
CollectorDASH CollectorDASH is Etsy for collectors. Bill Jones is former President of Air2Web. Product is live and they have a team of four that have been working on the company for over a year.
Coolleaf iTunes for personal health care coupled with a rewards platform. Nice looking app. Pilot kicking off next month in Atlanta.
PlugMeIn Browser tool bar app that exposes contact info for a particular website. Saw a demo of this yesterday. Very slick patented technology. Backed by CEO Ventures.
MusicSesh Out of Boston. Drove down for 3 minutes on the stage. An online educational and social music community. Founder Jason Beaton has a lot of passion. Launching in three weeks and looking for a half mil. Might want to drive to Cali for that.
Tour Wrist Nice name. Mobile marketing platform number three today. Street view for inside places. They are getting a lot of press and awards. Have over 17,000 places created today. Have deals with RE/MAX and Realtor.com.
Transloadit File uploading and conversion as a service for web applications. They are out of Germany. The one in Europe. And Amsterdam. I need to go do some diligence on this one. Have 70 paying customers. Self-funded and intend to be profitable by the end of the year. Nice.
VisitorLeads Track and identify the companies that visit websites. Integrated with Salesforce, Outlook, Oracle, and SugarCRM. In beta. Have $80k in revenue. CEO Ventures invested.
R3 Collaboratives Record. Reflect, Repeat. Video collaboration software for classroom instruction. Passionate former teacher Adam Geller is running the show. I personally shy away from the education market. Backing from Kauffmann Foundation is a great reference.
LocalDipity CB radio for the 21st century. I will quote Howard Page "we are a solution in search of a problem." They are also looking for a CEO type to join the team.
Pretty In My Pocket A mobile coupon and product comparison tool for beauty products. It is focused on the mass retail makeup market. Have raised $50k and looking for $250k. Caroline Van Sickle has been moving this along nicely.
Renting Smart From Randwick, Australia. Web app to help owners manage their investment properties. As such a person I am not sure if I see the need but what do I know.
Glancey Instant visual product search. Great reviews from the likes of LifeHacker, Killer Startups, and Gizmodo. Have some revenue. Seeking $1 million in seed funding.
HomeCLUE CarFax for pre-owned homes. Designed to help homebuyers discover hidden or undisclosed home defects and problems as part of the buying process. Out of Columbia, South Carolina. Seeking $500.
SwipeMotion Sam Bowen's concept that was created at StartAtlanta. SwipeMotion is a knowledge on-demand service for IT departments that have to support tablet devices.
TeamEX An online strategy execution system. Two paying customers. CEO Ventures company.
Hour two is a wrap. More networking until 3:15 third hour start.
Today if the fourth version of Startup Riot. Startup Riot is the Southeast's version of Disrupt or Luanch. It's a pitch event where tech startups get three minutes to tell their story. This year the event has moved to the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle is a rockin kind of place, my favorite venue in all of Atlanta to see a show. The floor literally bounces when the place gets going. Today 50 startups are taking their moment in the spotlight.
Like last year I am going to live blog with quick updates on the presenting companies and my thoughts on their pitches and prospects.
Rocket Whale Simple web-based policies and procedures software for small businesses. A visit to the site is worth a look at the logo.
Mogley Customer loyalty, gift cards, payment, and promotion management mobile markeing platform targeted toward merchants. Nice looking app. Kinda cool play in the local marketing space. Busy space. Merchant and audiance acquisition could be tough. Nice presentation.
TripLingo Came out of StartAtlanta and was voted best of show there. It's a nice customizable translation app. Slang slider is a nice feature. Has a team working full-time and have secured a little seed funding. Jesse Maddox the founder was getting ready to head West before TripLingo, now says "we love Atlanta." Asked the for the order. Set the bar for the day. triplingo.com/startupriot.
Nouvou Enterprise data loss prevention system coming out of Georgia Tech. Company made it to the final 10 of the GTRIC Innovation Competition there recently.
PlacePunch Another mobile marketing platform. Two in the first group, I told you the space was crowded. The cross location checkin compatibility is a smart move. They have paying customers and funding from Shotput Ventures. Looking for $500k more. They could get it.
I was knocked off the network at some point here and lost reviews of Merlin Mobilty, VoiceCloud, Pardot, ThundrLizard and kicked back and just enjoyed the presentations. If any of the companies that I missed want to reach out more than happy to give you your three lines of fame. With that said one that got my attention was DNSimple.
DNSimple Really like this. So much that I am going to become a customer. Register domains and handle third party applications such as Google Apps and Heroku. No upsell hassle. Have customer traction and can self fund. May be willing to take $150k from someone that can make them grow faster.
Hopefully we will have a little bit better luck with Internet access later this afternoon.
So ATDC can be quite the interesting place. I was walking down the hall yesterday when I noticed a lady that looked somewhat familiar standing in the reception area. I said hello and introduced myself. Turns out to be Jennifer 8. Lee. That is really her name.
We struck up a conversation. She was in town to speak at the inaugural meetup for Atlanta Hacks/Hackers about the Knight News Challenge, a grant competition for open-source news and information projects that gives away up to $5 million a year. Jenny 8 also told me about the SXSW accelerator program presented by long-time ATDC partner MicroSoft Bizspark.
The third annual SXSW Accelerator will take place March 14-16 at the 2011 SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin. They are looking for business entries in Innovative Web Technologies, Social Media and Social Networking Technologies, Entertainment Technologies, Health Technologies and News Related Technologies. Finalists will receive up to two minutes to present their idea to a jury panel of venture capitalist or technology industry experts. The real benefit is exposure.
The event is on December 6 from 11:30am– 1:30pm. The format is a simple five minute pitch using 10 slides or less. Eligible startups are must be based in Georgia with a product release under their belt and actively engaging with enterprise customers. To be considered you must submit a one to two page executive summary over at StartupLounge.
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